I have to disagree with Hugh Fitzgerald on this one. Because it would not be logical for one to be afraid of a Jihad call for the American people when even the majority of Muslims don't buy it the way al-Qaida does.

Jeff Jarvis does something similar to this nowadays - asking google news to ban fascist sites, and not list any news from them on news.google.com.

(He will appear on MSNBC today to support that by the way.)

I say let people decide. No matter what.

Posted by: serdarkaya at March 23, 2005 10:31 AM

Sent this email to the FCC this AM concerning al-Jazeera :

I read this morning that the Arab television station al-Jazeera will soon be broadcasting in this country. Make no mistake here, al-Jazeera is a Muslim controlled television station.

Although the future is not certain, our only map into tomorrow is the past. I guess what I am trying to say is that al-Jazeera has been an Islamic propaganda machine since the first broadcast, singularly hostile to the United States and sympathetic to everything that is the very antithesis of our way of life.

I can see no reason to believe that al-Jazeera will change their broadcasting practices, and as such should be monitored closely. I am sure that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) will have a presence within the programming of al-Jazeera, filling the air with half-truths and expounding on Islamic love, equality, and understanding.

Of particular concern is the issue of opposing points of view and equal air time for these viewpoints. In my view, the last thing this country needs is an Islamic propaganda machine trying to destroy our society from within. Freedom of speech is one thing, but subversion in the guise of free speech is another.

I don't know what you have been told about Islam, but Mr. Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam is a good example of the love and understanding in the Muslim religion.

Let me add a short quote from Mr. Ohmar Ahmad, co-founder of CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations):

"Those who stay in America should be open to society without melting, keeping Mosques open so anyone can come and learn about Islam. If you choose to live here, you have a responsibility to deliver the message of Islam ... Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faiths, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."

Mr. Martin, I could go on for many pages about the Muslim religion but I won't. I would be happy to correspond with you on this sensitive subject if you would like.

FCC Chairman Matin's e0-mail address:
http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/martin/mail.html

Posted by: BillR at March 23, 2005 12:20 PM

Sent this email to the FCC this AM concerning al-Jazeera :

I read this morning that the Arab television station al-Jazeera will soon be broadcasting in this country. Make no mistake here, al-Jazeera is a Muslim controlled television station.

Although the future is not certain, our only map into tomorrow is the past. I guess what I am trying to say is that al-Jazeera has been an Islamic propaganda machine since the first broadcast, singularly hostile to the United States and sympathetic to everything that is the very antithesis of our way of life.

I can see no reason to believe that al-Jazeera will change their broadcasting practices, and as such should be monitored closely. I am sure that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) will have a presence within the programming of al-Jazeera, filling the air with half-truths and expounding on Islamic love, equality, and understanding.

Of particular concern is the issue of opposing points of view and equal air time for these viewpoints. In my view, the last thing this country needs is an Islamic propaganda machine trying to destroy our society from within. Freedom of speech is one thing, but subversion in the guise of free speech is another.

I don't know what you have been told about Islam, but Mr. Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam is a good example of the love and understanding in the Muslim religion.

Let me add a short quote from Mr. Ohmar Ahmad, co-founder of CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations):

"Those who stay in America should be open to society without melting, keeping Mosques open so anyone can come and learn about Islam. If you choose to live here, you have a responsibility to deliver the message of Islam ... Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faiths, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."

Mr. Martin, I could go on for many pages about the Muslim religion but I won't. I would be happy to correspond with you on this sensitive subject if you would like.

FCC Chairman Matin's e0-mail address:
http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/martin/mail.html

Posted by: BillR at March 23, 2005 12:22 PM

Serdarkya:

Do you really think that Al-Jezeerah will air bare-faced calls to Jihad over US air waves. I suspect they are a lot more subtle and media savvy than the folks running Al-Manure, who continued broadcasting bile and spleen over French air waves after their temporarily suspended broadcast rights were restored, only to end up being banned.

No, I'm pretty sure the folks at A-J will show much more discretion.

As for leaving it to the people to decide, what is it about the supposedly liberal mind that it will argue for social tolerance of the consumately intolerant?

Posted by: waterdragon52 at March 23, 2005 12:42 PM

This is not media....it is PROPAGANDA.

Would you let the Nazi's been in their agenda if they called it "news" or a media outlet?

Would you let the Communist?

This is another outlet for further brainwashing in America.

This is dangerous to say "let people decide on thier own"...the danger is that people believe what they see on the news. If you create a lie and deliver it as news people believe it. i.e. Dan Rather, Michael Moore. People believe these guys.

If they allow Al-Jazeera, I would rather see a direct english translation of their arab reporting. I can guarentee that there will be something toned down and "lost in translation".

By the way, when in the hell is Canada going to allow FOX to have a chanel?

P.S. I will be boycotting any cable network that carries this channel and I ask the same of my fellow Americans. Don't sit around and say "let people decide for thierselves" do the greater good!

Posted by: alaskan1000 at March 23, 2005 12:56 PM

Well.. let me explain what I said a bit.

If you believe that Fox News is bringing you the news, all the news, nothing but the news,.. then you are more than welcome to limit yourself to it.

However, I can hardly believe that unbiased media exists. No matter what it's called. A-J, Fox, CNN, you name it.

This is what I meant with 'let people decide'. Let them to hear about all viewpoints and decide whether to believe A-J or Fox.

Secondly, someone asked whether people would be allowed to talk about communism on TV?

I don't see anything wrong if people want to talk about an economic theory on TV.

As for Nazism and other ideologies which promote violence:

Governments cannot - and in my opinion should not - be in the position to decide what ideology is preferable to another. And in my opinion that includes all ideologies.

Let me explain:

A government's mere right is to protect its citizens' rights.

In that sense, governments should be chasing those who initiate force on others.

However, just because someone is racist (as in Nazism), doesn't mean that he is a murderer.

In other words, a government can definitely punish someone who has murdered (or made a call to murder). However, it cannot do anything because the person in question 'favors' killing.

Back to the point:

All TV channels are innocent until proven guilty.

There is the law, and everyone is there to abide by it or face the consequences.

The government is not to ask 'What ideology do you plan to promote in this channel you are about to launch?'

What instead it 'can' and 'should' do is to bring those who do not abide by the Broadcast Act to justice - without looking at the name of the channel.

Otherwise, you will be providing an open invitation to governments which will be more than happy to decide what is good for you and what is not.

Posted by: serdarkaya at March 23, 2005 1:45 PM

Al-Jazeera is not an unknown quantity. It is not as if it "deserves to be given a chance." It is known for presenting lies and nonsense, in both its coverage of what the American soldiers are doing in Iraq, and in its coverage of all other conflicts involving Jihad (the endless Jihad against Israel being only the most obvious). Permission to broadcast is not a right; many people and entities are turned down as offering broadcasts that are not in the public interest.

Unless it is understood that a war in underway, one that is for now conducted not through combat on the battlefield but by other means, and that this war, this Jihad, is mandated in Islam, is endless, and can only be interrupted temporarily when the Muslim side needs to regroup (as, apparently, it does so in the endless Jihad against Israel -- but it will resume once Gaza and much of the West Bank have been taken foolishly yielded by a nearly-demented Sharon government), serious measures -- effective measures will not be taken.

No one in the American government is hiring film-makers, as happened during World War II, to make propaganda films. No American government money is paying for cheap editions of books that deserve to be translated and widely distributed, or websites that deserve to have their contents translated into Arabic, Urdu, Farsi -- such as Ali Sina's www.faithfreedom.org. He works on a shoestring, as do those who, on a wing and a prayer, work at similar websites, including this one. This is intolerable. This is absurd.

Instead of propaganda that shows what a free society is like, and how totaliatrain ideologies -- the Nazis, the Communists -- offer a Total Explanation, and so on (the parallels will be drawn by the Muslim audinece, as the American program analyzes in detail how Nazis and Communists recruited, and kept, their troops, and how freedom of thought was impossible). It can all be done, with thinly-disguised Aesopian language, not about Islam directly -- but about all those features of other ideologies that are similar to Islam.

But if the absence of our propaganda, to demoralize the Jihadist enemy (yes, let us carefully tip-toe for the nonce around the word "Islam" and refer only to "the Jihadists" as if there is another kind), is bad, the idea of permitting enemy propaganda because "in the free marketplace of ideas" Right Will Triumph -- cut the crap. With that argument, one would not have tried to throttle Nazi propaganda in this coutnry during World War II, or Communist propaganda during the Cold War.

Propaganda works. Not everyone sees through the fog and the deception of Islam -- of which Muslims are past masters, far surpassing whatever Goebbels or Lunacharsky could dish out. And because Islam is also a belief that is modified, in its harshness, in the fact of ignorance, indifference, lack of observance, or nonchalance by some of those calling themselves Muslims, we Infidels keep mistaking that ignorance, that indifference, that unobservance, that nonchalance, for something that is in Islam itself. It isn't. Islam itself is totalitarian and a permanent menace. Thank god not all Muslims are fully informed, or fully accepting, or fervent, in their faith -- that's all that keeps them from being "good Muslims" in the fullest sense. And everything should be done to promote, within Islam, fissures and resentments -- let Kurds and Berbers resist political domination by Arabs, let Indonesians and Malaysians resist cultural domination by Arabs, let promoters of the nation-state work against Islam and its subset, pan-Arabism: with Lebanon, Iraq, and just possibly Egypt as examples of where national identity should be encouraged, however artificial and antithetical to Islam it may be.

But don't allow Al-Jazeera, or rely on the intelligence of its intended audience (which of course will include Muslims in this country, quite ready to be whipped up, as they are already by tapes of the Arabic-language version).

Posted by: Hugh at March 23, 2005 2:29 PM

We get Al Jazeera in the UK on channel 819 (tucked away between the radio channels and the porn channels). I've checked it out a couple of times and never seen outrageous images or anything. I'm far more worried about that other Islamist propaganda channel... Al-BBC.

Just look at what they're putting out today...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/4358559.stm

They pump out this kind of sh*t 24-7, all over the world, in almost every language!

Posted by: Comrade_Smirnoff at March 23, 2005 2:31 PM

Whoa, there is a upside to watching al Jazeera.

Mosaic
A daily compilation of news reports from more than 15 countries in the Middle East including, Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, Syria the Palestinian Authority, and Iran, among others. Is shown four times daily on Dish Network and DirectTV.

It also includes IBA (Israel Broadcasting Authority), and it is actually hilarious to watch the hyperbole, exagerations, duplicity, double standards and rationalizations of Arab and Iranian TV.

I watch it intensely, as it gives me insight into the Arab and Muslim mind and mentality, like how they never accept responsiblity for anything.
And their immature and highly emotional overreactions.

They probably think it is to their benefit to air their propaganda in the west, but speaking for myself the whole effort has been counterproductive.

Posted by: Giaour at March 23, 2005 5:07 PM

Al-Jazeera is not an unknown quantity. It is not as if it "deserves to be given a chance." It is known for presenting lies and nonsense, in both its coverage of what the American soldiers are doing in Iraq, and in its coverage of all other conflicts involving Jihad

Interestingly al Jazeera is accused of being a Zionist front by Muslims. Don't think so? Just sign up for Liberty Forum, start a thread on al Jazeera and start flagging the hundreds of muslims who abuse (and their dhimmis) who abuse free speech over there.

However when it comes to lies and nonsense, pretty hard to top Faux News, MSNBC, Clear Channel, Rush, Hannity and the rest of the so called "conservative" talk shows... who amongst other things, trumpeted the lies (that most Americans still believe) that Saddam had WMD's, was responsible for 9-11, and was (despite the fatwa's issued against him by Osama and Muslim Clerics) supporting international Jihad movements.

So now we are mired in a cesspool, wasted our blood and national treasure, our childrens posterity (the deficit Bush racked up for Iraq), and we can't get out and for what? To create an Islamic Republic, with Shari'a as basis of constitution and Law? An adjunct to the Mullahcracy of Iran,,..

Saddam was doing us a favor, actually. He knew how to take care of the Jihadis, he put them in prison and filled mass graves with their bodies.

And what do we have now? Iraq is a training and recruiting ground for a new cadre of Jihadis, just like Bosnia was, and at the cost of over 1,500 American Lives and tens of thousands of wounded, actually the real cost in lives (dead and wounded and mentally destroyed) is not known.

We destroyed our children, destroyed our own economy, destroyed our own culture for what purpose? To create an Islamic Republic run by mad Mullahs.

The only reason you and others don't or won't grasp that is because of blind loyality, propaganda (and our media is naught more than a propaganda outlet for the corporate elite), or wilful ignorance.

Here is what the International Institute for Strategic Studies[says in Strategic Survey 2003/4

]The war has focused the energies and resources of al-Qaeda and its followers while diluting those of the global counter-terrorism coalition.

While I quite agree about al Jazeera, don't bitch too much, because FauxMSNBCCBSABCNBC and "conservative" talk radio is no different, none at all.

Posted by: Giaour at March 23, 2005 5:23 PM

"We destroyed our children, destroyed our own economy, destroyed our own culture for what purpose? To create an Islamic Republic run by mad Mullahs."

"The only reason you and others don't or won't grasp that is because of blind loyalty..."

From a posting above.

Query: who is "you"?

Posted by: Hugh at March 23, 2005 6:15 PM

Yes, but serdarkaya, Al-Jazeera's a propaganda station. It's been cleaned and screened before it goes to English press. The drapes don't match the carpet, if you get what I'm saying. In that sense, it's not a real representation of events, but basically a propaganda outlet.

Geoff

Posted by: Geoff at March 24, 2005 2:00 AM

Geoff:

Again, I never said A-J is not propaganda.

My point was: so are the other news channels.

Did you know that BBC has different news policies for different regions in the world?

Supply and demand.

People most of the time want to hear what they want to hear. And TV channels supply that demand.

And in that sense, all is propaganda.

Moreover, propaganda is an innocent word in open societies. I believe we should prefer 'deceit'.

Posted by: serdarkaya at March 24, 2005 2:20 AM

Let's put it more simply.

Screw Al-Jezeera.

They hate the West. And they support the ultimate
goal of a world Islamic Terror State. (Reasonably, of course.)

Let them beam their rancid broadcasts to Mercury, a planet more fit for their thought processes.
An uninhabitable hell.

I watch and listen to all stations with skepticism, trust my own instincts, have read the Muslim playbook (Koran/hadiths) and would rather see more on a History Channel type station simply giving accurate translations and demonstrations of the 'divine text'.

And clear docu-dramas/re-enactments of crucial
moments in early Islam, when Mohammad was raiding caravans, killing a woman poet who mocked his 'revelation', slaughtering scoffing Jews, attacking pagans at Medina, beheading Christians who insisted Jesus was also God, and I especially want to see his wedding to the 9 year bride Aisha.

Wouldn't this make a hell of a Movie of the Week!
"The Wedding of Mohammad and His Little Girl Toy".

That would be as much propaganda as most Americans, or anyone in the modern world, would need. Or could stomach.

Then Al-Jezeera could broadcast anything they wanted, and it would all seem as looney as the standard ravings of the Nazis in the 1930's.

Seen through, sneered at, and dismissed as drivel.

Posted by: BigSleep at March 24, 2005 2:41 AM

BigSleep
I love the idea of a docudrama about early Islam. It would have to be animated, or done with puppets (I’m thinking of the UK/Russian collaboration of the Animated Shakespeare a few years back) to protect the cast, and the result (like that of the televised Bhavagita in India) would be most effective. I am looking forward to watching Jesus of Nazareth over the weekend - for obvious reasons.

Comrade Smirnoff

The Bleedin’ Biased Corporation could be an enormous tool for good in the Middle East were it so minded. My only experience of television in the Middle East is very limited, and comes from a week’s holiday in Israel over 15 years ago. The best reception in one hotel was BBC World Service (Asia) where I could have watched a documentary on the work of the Homeless Persons Unit in Basildon. For non-UK readers Basildon is a New Town taking London overflow, and for me this was too much of a busman’s holiday to be enjoyable.

In Jerusalem we got quite good reception of Jordanian TV, and watched a BBC export The Chart Show. The top tune that week was the novelty record by Mr Blobby (Meesta Blobbi) with Arabic subtitles. If you remember Mr Blobby you will understand what I mean. If you are not familiar consider yourself lucky! There was also a crime drama set in North London with a cast of London Jewish actors and a Scottish/Canadian historical series called The Campbells which was unintentionally hilarious.

I digress here, but my point is that there is, or maybe was, a market for quality history and comment which I believe was not, is not, being properly used. After all we exported Big Brother (even if it did fold after a week for being “unislamic” )

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at March 24, 2005 7:13 AM